Catalyst Telecom gets Partners in Gear

Telephony distributor Catalyst Telecom is rolling out new tools and initiatives to help partners sell more converged communications solutions.

For one, the company plans to launch Catalyst System Central, a software package for tracking factory orders of Avaya's enterprise IP telephony products, said John Black, president of Catalyst Telecom, a Greenville, S.C.-based unit of specialty distributor ScanSource. The tool is in beta-testing now and should be available to solution providers by the end of June, he said.

>Solution City: A Web-based knowledge center VARs can visit to get expertise on selling on specific vertical markets, such as accounting, education, financial serices, governmentm health care, law and retail.

> Avaya Global Services: Caltalyst Telecom is in the process of negotiating a contract with Avaya so the distributor can resell the vendor's professional services to solution providers.

To help partners do this, Catalyst Telecom recently launched Solution City, a Web-based knowledge center that partners can access to learn about a

"This resource has executive overviews and tells you [about] ... the issues that are important to them [in these markets]," Black said. "If you're better prepared for vertical markets, you'll outperform your competition."

In the future, the tool will also help solution providers target utilities, the hospitality industry and manufacturing, he said.

"This is going to help our guys go in and take a look at some of the buzzwords and key things [vertical-market customers] are interested in," said Scott Kennedy, owner of Kennedy Communications, a solution provider in Lake City, Fla.

Catalyst Telecom developed Solution City by sitting down with people in vertical markets to find out what problems they face, what terminology they use, who the decision-makers are and what questions solution providers should ask potential customers, said Farrar Pittman, vice president of sales and marketing at Catalyst Telecom.

In addition, the distributor said it hopes to be reselling Avaya's professional services by next month.

Solution providers already can purchase Avaya services,including integration, installation and maintenance,for resale directly from the vendor, but buying them through distribution should ease the process, Pittman said.

"There can be a little bit of pain when they have to deal directly with Avaya,there are so many steps," Pittman said. "We'll simplify it for them."

Fourteen of the 24 publicly held channel companies on our watch list saw the price of their stock increase in the first quarter of 2018 while 10 recorded stock price declines. Take a look at who were the winners and who were the losers.

Ingram Micro executive vice president and Americas group president Paul Bay says rather than focus on technology and its delivery, Ingram Micro today is all about the business outcome the channel needs to deliver.